The Impact of Scripting Technologies on User Experience - Assignment Example

Scripting Technologies: Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Question Write a 1500 word essay on the impact of scripting technologies on user experience with particular reference to social networking site. You are expected to make references to individual sites, studies and other academic work on the subject. All references should be formatted to the University standard. INTRODUCTION Internet is becoming the livelihood of many people globally. The designers of the web applications therefore should always have the user in mind while developing these applications. According to James D. Foley (1996) Human-Computer Interaction, often called HCI, is a sociotechnological discipline whose goal is to bring the power of computers and communications systems to people in ways and forms that are both accessible and useful in our working, learning, communicating, and recreational lives. The user interface should be organized in a purposefully, meaningful and consistent and recognizable to users. On the structure, the user interface should put related things together and separate the unrelated things. The content should be visible where all needed options and materials for a given task are visible without distracting the user. There is also the principal of feedback where the design of user interface should keep users informed of actions, interpretations, changes of state or condition, and errors or exceptions that are relevant. SCRIPTING LANGUAGES Unlike the traditional programming languages, Scripting languages eliminates the need to for compilation, manage memory automatically and more interestingly they include high-level datatypes. It is believed that in the future these languages will likely become the core of most developing projects, because of their power to bring together the existing components into a working application system. Some of the scripting languages include the following:- 1. PHP PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for Web development to produce dynamic Web pages. It is developed to be embedded into an HTML document hence no calling of an external file to process data. Its code is interpreted by a Web server having a PHP processor module which generates the resulting Web page. 2. Active Server Pages (ASP) This is a server-side scripting technology developed by Microsoft, here a programmer can create dynamic web pages by putting script code inside HTML pages and the code is executed by the web server before returning to the browser. 3.JSP This is a server-side scripting technology much like ASP, where one can create dynamic web pages by putting Java code in the HTML pages. The code is then executed by the web server before returning to the browser. 4. Cold Fusion This is another server-side scripting language used to develop dynamic web pages. It is developed by Adobe. 5. AJAX This in not actually a technology but rather a collection of technologies that is each providing robust foundations when designing and developing web applications. AJAX is actually to increase the interactivity, usability and speed. The most commonly known examples of AJAX applications include Google Maps, Gmail and Yahoo Maps. 6. JavaScript JavaScript (JS) is a scripting language that unifies most of the Ajax elements to operate together effectively and thus takes a most significant role. It is a browser-based scripting language that has been used in millions of websites. JavaScript allows programmers to create Web pages that are capable of delivering dynamic functionalities and in-page refreshing. Most of the social networks which are increasingly becoming popular such as Facebook and tweeter uses JavaScript to provide richer web applications that are interactive and efficient. 7. Others Others include; shell, awk, Perl, TCL, Python, Java, Lisp and many others. IMPACT OF SCRIPTING TECHNOLOGY ON USER EXPERIENCE The scripting languages have the following characteristics They are interpreted and never compiled. The memory handling is not done by the programmer. They include high-level datatypes for instance lists and associative arrays. The program being written can be integrated with the execution environment. The scripts can access modules written in lower-level languages. The scripting languages therefore are dynamic in nature for them to treat data as a program and vice versa. Some of the major impacts the technologies have on user experience has been highlighted below with reference to various individual sites and social networks sites They include:- 1. Asynchronous transfer Scripting technology has Asynchronous communication replacing synchronous request. Whenever there is request sent to a web server, there is individual components of the page being updated independently (asynchronous). This has done away with the previous need to wait for the whole page is active for it to be loaded (synchronous). It has also been noticed that there is relatively faster loading of the various components of the site requested. This leads to a significant reduction in bandwidth required per session because the web page does not need to reload its complete content again. In Google Maps for instance the users can drag the entire map using a mouse. AJAX technology behind the scenes is used and the map data is requested and downloaded asynchronously in the background while the other parts of the page remain the same with no loss of operational context. 2. Separation of display from data fetching Scripting technology has enabled the separation of displaying from data fetching. Here the user can continue using the application while the client program requests information from the server in the background. 3. Efficient memory management Scripting languages have a memory manager in their run time part that acts as a typical interpreter hence avoid manual memory management. Here several programs can share one interpreter to reduce the memory usage. 4. Flash-based website YouTube is one of the primarily flash-based website. It allows users to watch high-resolution videos and much more interactive content on their Web browser. 5. Live Validation Web forms being on of the main object for submitting data, it can be frustrating sometimes in the Internet especially when it is too long collecting so mush information and even sometimes hitting the submit button only to get errors that have to be rectified. Adding Ajax validation will ease this pain because it will tell the user instantly when he/she makes a mistake. Live Validation therefore is an excellent Ajax script that makes form validation super easy. 6. TextboxList meets Autocompletion An auto-completing fields in a form is major benefit to any user and a huge time saver. The technology allows for auto-completion of details where details such as e-mail address, ID numbers, names or city name may be auto-completed as the e user types in. This eases the need for the user to remember so many details. Searching for an email addresses is a task that can be made simpler using Ajax technology and TextboxList meets Autocompletion is one such example. Example is the Gmail ability to select Country from a list of countries when a user is opening a new account. 7. Master detail operation The technology has provided for master detail operation where based on a user selection, several detailed information is fetched and displayed. For example looking at the Facebook web site, a user can look for a friend by typing only a few letters and a list of friends with such letters displayed. This makes the search easier. 8. Ajax Directory Manager Navigating the traditional folders can be very difficult for a web user because each click on a folder will require the page to reload. Ajax technology has given this problem a good bye by bringing in a user friendly directory manager. Relay has been used as a robust directory manager built on Ajax technology and its interface include features like drag-n-drop file, dynamically loading file structure, uploads with file progress bar and user accounts. 9. Ajax Star Rating It is always good to know what people think about components in your web site. This has been made possible by the introduction of Ajax Star Rating hence adding interactivity to your site, and also giving users a voice to give their opinions. The simple Ajax script that does this work is the unobtrusive Ajax start rater. 10. JCrop Photo editing is another big problem to users, it may force a user to stop interacting with the site in order to resize or crop some photos before uploading. Photo editing online could be very useful because it involves a process. JQuery plugin called JCrop. It allows the users to crop any image that is being uploaded to the server using Ajax cropping engine. Conclusion Users including those with disability need interactive and accessible sites to access information. How the user interacts with the site and the kind of feedback received will determine whether the user will continue in the site of not. This has nothing to do with design and layout but accessibility and interactivity. A site can have a simplified layout with increased popularity but the major draw could be the type of interactivity. All these can be achieved if scripting technology is adopted and used appropriately to achieve the interactive web applications that are user friendly and effectictive. As technologies in web development continues to evolve, so does hackers and malicious individuals with the ill motive not only for web distortion but also goal to steal from corporate data for instance customer credit card details References Agar, J. (2003). Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books. Dix, A, Finlay. J Abowd, G and Beale. R. (1998). Human Computer Interaction. (2nd Ed.) Prentice Hall: Europe Introduction to Ajax Sang Shin Java Technology Architect Sun Microsystems. Retrieved on 06/02.2012 from www.javapassion.com Read More